Donovan lifted me up off the bed, his arms locked around me as he went to his knees. The movement startled me, made me ease back from the biting.

His voice was shaky. "Too much teeth, Anita."

He knelt on the narrow bed, his arms wrapped around me, his body no longer inside me. My legs were wrapped around his waist. I must have done it automatically when he moved. He'd stopped making love to get me to stop trying to eat him.

His neck had a perfect impression of my teeth like a purplish-red bruise in the white perfection of his flesh. Blood traced down his shoulder and back where my nails had gone into that smooth skin. I could have said so many things, but the one thing I said was the one that amazed me most. "You broke the ardeur's hold."

"I may not be a predator, Anita, but I'm still a king; that means I have to give myself to you. You can't just take it."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"It's all right, I'm not angry. Just don't tear my throat out, or carve my back up, okay?"

"I'm not sure she can help it," Micah said. I looked out from the man in my arms to find not just Micah but all the men crowded around the bed. Remus seemed to be arguing with Requiem and London. Too low to hear, but body language said it all. I met Micah's eyes and asked for help with a look. I'd thought of Donovan as just meat, just food. The sex hadn't been enough to distract me from blood, and meat.

Donovan asked, "What can I do to keep myself safe?"

Requiem came to the bed, his black cloak tight around him. "If you are strong enough to sit up with her as you did, then you are strong enough to hold her down."

"We can't guarantee your safety, Reece," Remus said.

Donovan looked at the guard. He shifted his grip from my waist to lower, but there was no wavering, as if he could have held me forever. It answered whether the swanmanes were stronger than normal humans; they were. "I know you cannot guarantee my safety."

"She could tear your throat out before we could move," Remus said.

"If it gets that out of hand, we interfere," Micah said.

"Interfere how?" Remus asked.

"Grab her, help Donovan hold her down."

"The ardeur will spread to anyone who touches her," Remus said.

Micah nodded. "I know."

Remus shook his head, a little too rapidly. "I can't do my job then. I can't keep Reece safe."

"Because you won't risk the ardeur spreading to you." Micah made it a statement, not a question.

"Yes," Remus said.

"Then leave," London said.

"We need a senior guard in here," Remus said. "Who do I send in my place? Bobby Lee is still in South America. Claudia, no. Who replaces me?" He sounded tormented, torn between duty and what? Duty and fear? Duty and the ardeur?

"We are out of time for niceties, Anita," Requiem said. "I speak for the vampires. If the lesser among us are to be saved, it must be now." There wasn't a poetic allusion in the statement. Things were bad when Requiem stopped quoting poetry.

It was almost as if his words brought the ardeur crashing back. One moment I was almost neutral in Donovan's arms, the next I was kissing him as if I'd crawl into his mouth. My nails just seemed to automatically dig into his back again. The feel of his flesh parting under my nails made me cry out in pleasure, and him in pain. I tried to tone down what I wanted to do to him. I tried not to bite at his mouth but only kiss, but the effort had me making small frustrated noises against his lips.

He pressed us back to the bed, his weight suddenly pinning me down. My legs were still wrapped around his waist so his body was already pushing against my opening. I fought to concentrate on the sex instead of flesh and blood. But the sex was tangled up with the feel of my nails in his back, my mouth at his lips. I wanted that hard press of flesh to shove its way inside me, but almost more I wanted to bite his lips and draw blood. I wanted blood more than sex. I was feeding for Jean-Claude, but the ardeur wasn't his first hunger.

I licked Donovan's lower lip, drew it into my mouth, so full, so rich, so… I bit down on his lip, hard and sharp. Blood, sweet, metallic, warm blood filled my mouth, and the world vanished in a dance of light flashes and pleasure. It wasn't sex, or orgasm, but it was as if that sip of blood ate the world in a red wash of pleasure. I'd had the world go red from anger, but never from sheer joy. It was as if every piece of my body filled with warmth and happiness all at once. It was orgasmic and not, but whatever it was, it was amazing.

I was left gasping and almost limp underneath Donovan. It was as if I'd lost time, because he had my wrists pinned, his body trying for the right angle to enter me. I blinked up at him as if I didn't remember how I got there. His chin was covered in bright, crimson blood; his lower lip was shredded. Had I done that?

Then he found his angle and was pushing his way into my body. I gazed down the length of our bodies to watch him plunge himself into me. The sight of it made me cry out and raise my hips to meet his thrust. His eyes fluttered shut, and he gasped, "You take all my control away."

"Fuck me, Donovan," I whispered.

He looked down at me, with blood spilling down his face, but his eyes filled with that look that a man gets. That look that says, Mine, sex, more, less than that. His eyes were bluer than I'd ever seen them as he began to shove himself in and out of my body. He found his rhythm, quick, fast, over and over. I watched all that pale, hard length plunge in and out of me. I felt the warmth begin to build. I whispered, "Soon."

"Your eyes," he whispered, "your eyes like blue flame."

I might have asked what he meant by that, but one last thrust and the orgasm hit me. I screamed and struggled underneath him. He fought to hold my hands down, fought to pin my lower body, fought to keep me where he had me, as his body thrust inside me in one last powerful movement that brought me screaming again, or maybe I hadn't stopped screaming from the first time. The ardeur fed, fed on his body plunged inside mine, fed on the strength of his hands on my wrists, fed on the heat of him, and then I felt the swans. The three women I knew in St. Louis were in a small bedroom. They stared up at me as if I were something they could see, something that had come to get them. Then other faces, more startled eyes; some cried out, some slumped on their couches, fell from chairs, others writhed on their beds. I fed, we fed, the ardeur fed. Dozens of faces, of bodies, and I felt Jean-Claude wake, felt it like a jolt through my belly and groin.

He took control of the energy and I might have tried to stop, but it was too late to stop. We fed on the swans, we fed on them all. So much power, so much life. We ate them down while they stumbled in mid-step, while they slid down walls, and none of them fought us. They just gave it up. An army of prey, an army of food; a glorious rush of power.

Richard woke; I felt his eyes flash open, felt him begin to choke and fight the tube in his throat. Jean-Claude drew me back from him, enough so I did not choke with him. I saw the white coats pile around Richard as he began to struggle.

Then it was night and moonlight and wings, strong wings beating against so much air. The ardeur hit those wings like an arrow through his heart. One pulse beat it was feathers and wings, the next pulse it was a man falling to earth. The ardeur took his power, drank down that pale body, that dark hair, the mix of pleasure and terror as he plummeted. Richard's power burst over me, through me, in a rush of heat and electricity. He reached out to the falling man, and simply thought—Change. He called the man's beast, called that energy and covered the flesh in feathers, turned the arms to wings in time for him to turn and skim over the treetops. I felt leaves brush our feet as wings beat frantically to gain height. But frantic didn't quite cover all that smooth, muscled power. When all we could feel was wind and space, we left him, and I had a moment of staring into Richard's face, a moment to see his chest covered in healing scars. Then I was back in the narrow bed with Donovan on top of me, his body poised above me, spine bowed, hands gripping my wrists as if I were the last solid thing in the world. His eyes were closed; blood dripped from his mouth onto my skin like red flowers exploding on my body.